Harry Potter has never been the star of a Quidditch team scoring points while riding a broom far above the ground. He knows no spells has never helped to hatch a dragon and has never worn a cloak of invisibility. All he knows is a miserable life with the Dursleys his horrible aunt and uncle and their abominable son Dudley -- a great big swollen spoiled bully. Harry's room is a tiny closet at the foot of the stairs and he hasn't had a birthday party in eleven years. But all that is about to change when a mysterious letter arrives by owl messenger: a letter with an invitation to an incredible place that Harry -- and anyone who reads about him -- will find unforgettable.

This is the pivotal fourth novel in the seven-part tale of Harry Potter's training as a wizard and his coming of age. Harry wants to get away from the pernicious Dursleys and go to the International Quidditch Cup with Hermione Ron and the Weasleys. He wants to dream about Cho Chang his crush (and maybe do more than dream). He wants to find out about the mysterious event that's supposed to take place at Hogwarts this year an event involving two other rival schools of magic and a competition that hasn't happened for a hundred years. He wants to be a normal fourteen-year-old wizard. Unfortunately for Harry potter he's not normal -- even by wizarding standards. And in his case different can be deadly.

The Dursleys were so mean and hideous that summer that all Harry Potter wanted was to get back to the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardy. But just as he's packing his bags Harry receives a warning from a strange impish creature named Dobby who says that if Harry Potter returns to Hogwarts disaster will strike. And strike it does. For in Harry's second year at Hogwarts fresh torments and horrors arise including an outrageously stuck-up new professor Gilderoy Lockheart a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girls' bathroom and the unwanted attentions of Ron Weasley's younger sister Ginny. But each of these seem minor annoyances when the real trouble begins and someone -- or something -- starts turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects... Harry Potter himself!